Sabiya Ahamed will begin pursuing her J.D. at the UC Berkeley School of Law this coming fall. In May 2017, she graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with a degree in both Middle East Studies and Political Science. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Sabiya comes from a mixed ethnic background and grew up in an interfaith family. She credits her commitment to human rights and social justice to her upbringing, life experiences and her faith. Sabiya’s work in social justice began primarily while she was in undergrad, where she spent time working with Students for Justice in Palestine, the Student Labor Alliance and Amnesty International. She has experience with organizing on campus and once appearing on a local television station in Rhode Island to defend the rights of refugees. Sabiya also spent the majority of her time in undergrad serving on the executive board for Brown’s Muslim Students’ Association, where she worked to make the Muslim community welcoming to Muslims from all backgrounds. Sabiya has a prominent interest in the study of refugees and migration. She was able to study these topics and more on the ground in Chile, Nepal and Jordan. Her senior thesis, which led to her honors degree in Middle East Studies, looks at the concept of human dignity and how the US refugee resettlement system upholds or diminishes the dignity of Syrian refugees. Sabiya also began an English class in Providence that works specifically with Syrian refugee women, after she learned that some women could not attend class because they had to watch their children. With the help of Providence community members and her classmates as volunteers, the class is able to transport the women to and from class and also provide childcare. In law school, she hopes to delve further into her study of refugee rights and hopes to change the ways in which the laws and the public view refugees and immigrants. She also plans to deepen her knowledge of different kinds of public interest and human rights law.